The red carpet and photo area for the Daejong (Grand Bell) Film Awards at KBS Hall in Yeouido, Seoul, Friday. A string of controversies, including the non-attendance of nominees for Best Actor and Actress awards, marred the festivities. / Yonhap

By Kwon Ji-youn

The organizers of the Daejong (Grand Bell) Film Awards had it coming when they adopted a "no show, no award" policy for this year's ceremony.

Director Youn Je-kyun's film "Ode to My Father" won a whopping 10 awards at the ceremony that took place at the KBS Hall in Yeouido Friday evening, but the festivities were marred by a string of controversies, including the nonattendance of nominees for key awards, a humiliating show of discomfort by those who were present and large numbers of empty seats in both the actor and audience stands.

"I apologize for coming up here (onto the stage) so many times tonight," said Youn, also known as JK Youn, after winning the Best Film award. "Receiving an award has never felt so burdensome."

The 52nd Daejong Film Awards suffered a major loss of prestige that evening. The preordained disaster began when the organizers announced at a press conference in mid-October that they had decided not to award actors who do not show up at the ceremony, which they said would strengthen fairness but instead raised questions about the legitimacy of its evaluation criteria. Cho Geun-woo, director of the event, added fuel to fire with remarks in a subsequent interview that belittled Korean actors.

"Korean actors are no different to those in underdeveloped countries," he said. "They are not stars. It's a national loss."

When the storm got out of hand, the organizers hinted that they were considering a retraction of the policy, but no official statement announced a withdrawal prior to the ceremony.

Ultimately, all nine nominees for the Best Actor award ― actors Hwang Jung-min, Ha Jung-woo, Son Hyun-joo and Yoo Ah-in and actresses Kim Yun-jin, Jun Ji-hyun, Kim Hye-soo, Uhm Jung-hwa and Han Hyo-joo ― failed to show, as did Kim Soo-hyun and Kong Hyo-jin, winners of the popularity awards. Only Lee Min-ho and Lee Yoo-young, winners of the Best New Actor awards, were there to accept their own trophies.

Host Shin Hyun-jun was busiest Friday evening. He spent half his time behind the emcee's podium and the other half on the stage giving and accepting awards on behalf of no-show actors. Director Lee Byeong-heon accepted the Best New Director award on behalf of director Baek Jong-yeol, a complete stranger and a rival for the award.

"Something unbelievable has happened," Lee said upon receiving Baek's trophy. "I was nominated for this award, but they asked me to receive it on someone else's behalf. I will be sure to give this to Baek, who I am not acquainted with. Good movie."

The organizers were also claimed to have pressured veteran actress Kim Hye-ja to accepting an award that she was reluctant to receive, given she would not be able to attend the ceremony, but later changed their minds.

The "pay to participate" online voting system also came under fire, as did the event's disregard of other box office hits including "Veteran" and "Assassination." An online petition for discontinuance of the Daejong Film Awards is ongoing.

The focus is now shifting to the Blue Dragon Film Awards, another prestigious film award in Korea. If the Daejong Film Awards are known to underline audience value, the Blue Dragon Film Awards stress cinematic quality. Last year, it presented the Best Actor award to Song Kang-ho of "The Attorney" amid worries that the event's host would disregard the film for its political nuances. The Best Actress award went to Chun Woo-hee, though her film "Han Gong-ju" was not a huge box office success. These were results which audiences agreed were reasonable. The organizers of the Blue Dragon Film Awards at a hand-printing event on Nov. 5 stressed the fairness of their screening process, pledging to make public the evaluations after the ceremony, set for Thursday.

The Daejong Film Awards, founded in 1962, are presented annually by the Motion Pictures Association of Korea. It is the oldest continuous award ceremony for the movie industry in Korea, and is regarded as the Korean equivalent of the American Academy Awards.